Here’s the transcript of Paul MacLean’s interview with reporters after winning the Jack Adams Trophy on Friday:

KERRY McGOVERN: This is Kerry McGovern from the NHL communications department. Thank you for joining us on today’s call. We’re going to have four of the award winners on the call today for questions. First up is Paul MacLean of the Ottawa Senators and winner of Jack Adams Award.
I will turn it over to Paul.
PAUL MacLEAN: I’d like to say I’m proud and humbled to accept this award on behalf of the Ottawa Senators and myself. I’d really like to congratulate Bruce Boudreau an outstanding season for Anaheim, and Joel Quenneville, whose outstanding season continues with the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Final.
I’d really like to thank the NHL writers for their votes and their support of our program in Ottawa. Also my wife Sharon and her support throughout the years, along with our children, Erin, AJ, and David, and all the anchors that go along with them. The Ottawa Senators Eugene Melnyk and Bryan Murray for giving a veteran assistant coach a chance to coach in the National Hockey League. Thank you for that opportunity.
Also our organization, our pro scouts, our amateur scouts, led by Tim Murray and Pierre Dorion, great young players that we really showcased this season. Our player development led by Randy Lee, Luke Richardson, and Chris Schwarz. What great work they’ve done to get these players ready to play in the league.
But most important people that we need to thank is my coaching staff of Dave Cameron, Mark Reeds, Rick Wamsley, and Tim Pattyson, what an outstanding job they did this season getting our team prepared.
And most of all the players. Daniel Alfredsson, what a great award for him tonight. Great credit, what a great help he’s been to me along with Chris Phillips, Jason Spezza, Sergei Gonchar, Chris Neil, and Craig Anderson.
The leadership of this group in the two years I’ve been in Ottawa has been outstanding. They are the big reason why I’m getting this award. I’m a representative of it. We think it’s a great day for the Ottawa Senators.

Q. Paul, what were you thinking during the season when you were faced with all these injuries?
PAUL MacLEAN: Well, when it started, it was more like, Who’s next? But at the time, once we got kind of through it, we were thinking, We got to find a way to win. That’s what good teams do, is find a way to win. So we were challenged early in the season to find ways to win.
I think our leadership group accepted that. The quality of our young players that we were able to bring up accepted that. I think that was a big reason for us having the success we had.

Q. Paul, as a coach, when you have these injuries, what can you physically do as a coach to motivate players, to get the most out of a lot of these young players unexpected to fill these big roles?
PAUL MacLEAN: For me it was important that I continue to set the expectations of the team at a high level, but also be realistic about those expectations, not try to do things that we can’t do, not try to play ways we can’t play, not try to play players. We had Erik Karlsson and Jason Spezza injured. We didn’t have those two players playing in Binghamton. For us to expect someone to come up be those to players is unfair and not realistic.
We tried to give the players realistic expectations and a realistic way to play the game to have success.
I think the work of our goaltenders was a huge help to us. It gave us a ton of confidence. That’s a great credit to my assistant coach Rick Wamsley and the work he did with Robin Lehner and Ben Bishop in Binghamton during the lockout. When Craig got injured, those two guys came up and gave us an awful lot of confidence and a big part of our success.

Q. Paul, can you talk a little bit about being an assistant coach for so long. What does it mean to you for perseverance? Today is the two-year anniversary of you being hired.
PAUL MacLEAN: That’s a little ironic.
For me, I always felt that I had the abilities to coach, be a head coach, in the National Hockey League. But I also always understood there were only 30 of those opportunities, and that it was difficult to get one of them. There were a lot of people just like me that were qualified or thought they were qualified.
I just wanted to make sure that I continued to try to learn and work at being a coach probably harder than I worked at being a player if I was going to have success and just have patience.
There were a few days I thought I might have gone past the expiration date of having an opportunity. A lot of help from Mike Babcock, the Red Wings, what I learned from them. And when I was looking for the position, having a previous relationship with Bryan Murray from Anaheim helped a lot.
When I got the opportunity, all the work I put into being a coach I think has paid off. I was ready for it. I’m not really overwhelmed by the position at the age that I am and the experience that I have.
I just think sticking to it and still believing in what I did as an assistant coach has helped me now that I’ve got the opportunity to be the head coach. This kind of gives us credibility that all those times when I was thinking that I could do this, now this kind of gives me the credibility that I was right, I could coach in the league.
Now I’m just scared to freaking death, so I got to do it again (laughter).

Q. You didn’t let those players use those injuries as an excuse. That was probably the most important factor, wasn’t it?
PAUL MacLEAN: I think that’s a factor in it. I’m not sure if it’s the most important one.
I think the confidence of our young players that we brought in, their confidence as players, the confidence that Daniel and the leadership group we’ve mentioned, gave them. Then the confidence that my coaching staff gave them I think had way more to do with the success we had than not letting it be an excuse.
We had over 40 games to play when we lost everybody. We just couldn’t have an excuse. There were too many games to play. We had to make sure we found a way to get something out of the season. At that point in time we didn’t know what we were going to get out of it after we got all the guys injured. We knew we were going to try to get growth and opportunity for as many young players as we could.
Bryan Murray, Tim, myself, Eugene, the whole organization showed great patience, and great respect for our scouting staff, the fact that we didn’t go out and try to trade for four veteran players and give up some of that youth. We said, Why don’t we try giving our young players an opportunity to play?
That was probably the best decision that we made, was not to go out and try to replace everybody. Let’s just see what we have and see if they can play. If they couldn’t, then we might have to go do that. As it turned out, our scouting staff has done a good job of identifying young players.
The fact we were forced to play them was a big part of it. But I think the quality of the players allowed us to play them. That was really a bigger part of it than anything I did or anyone else did, was the quality of our players that we could put in.

Q. Daniel’s award, the NHL Mark Messier Leadership Award presented by Bridgestone, what have you seen firsthand?
PAUL MacLEAN: To me they could rename it, if they ever wanted to, it could be Daniel Alfredsson. The two years I’ve been here in Ottawa, he’s been a great help to me. We have conversations all the time about our team, how we’re playing, what’s going on. He’s been a tremendous help for me.
I think it’s very well-deserved, especially for this season. I think by far he was the best captain in the National Hockey League with what our team faced and how our team and he continued to compete. I think it’s very well-deserved for him. Just adds to his legacy and his Hall of Fame career.

Q. You hope he comes back?
PAUL MacLEAN: I along with everyone in town. I think there’s still something there. As I’ve said all along, the decision that Daniel Alfredsson makes is going to be the right decision and I’m going to be fine with it.

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